Seminar: Seeing the World through Indian Foreign Service Eyes – A Blueprint for ‘Diplomatic’ Fieldwork

Greetings from the Coombs Seminar Room A at The Australian National University where India specialist Kate Sullivan is presenting Seeing the World through Indian Foreign Service Eyes — A Blueprint for ‘Diplomatic Fieldwork’ in the study of International Relations (IR).

The talk and topic is particularly interesting to me in that the study readily lends itself to the application of Aspect-Oriented Thinking (a multidisciplinary methodology developed by Dr Shayne Flint) in tackling the integration of the necessary domain knowledge and structure.

In the first part of her talk, Ms Sullivan makes the following interesting points about IR study.

IR is not culturally-neutral: This affects the study of IR theories due to the following factors:

• Complexity
• Epistemology
• Universalist assumptions
• IR’s ‘debt to the West’

Reforming the discipline of IR study: These issues have been recognized by intellectuals and efforts are underway to reform the discipline, in particular the handling of culture in the context of

• Foreign Policy Analysis
• Strategic Studies

IR studies are obviously multi-, inter- and trans-disciplinary in nature, encountering issues which can to a large extent be ameliorated by exploiting interpretive contexts. This work presents interesting cross-cutting concerns with current research across The Australian National University by Ziyad Alshaikh in management of context, suggesting effective use of a Context Dynamics Matrix.

In the second part of her talk, Ms Sullivan visits the debate surrounding the narrative exploration in her research studies, successfully arguing a case for contextualizing the implicit nature of theories and methodologies in asking questions about India’s aspirations to be an institutionally recognized ‘global power’.

Finally, Ms Sullivan outlined the effects various drivers and forces governing Indian foreign policy decisions and their resulting outcomes. She argued that we should look at the context of the narrative concerns at a sufficient level of abstraction and detail and map it to an ethnographic effect. This entails a view of the Indian Foreign Service from a perspective of:

• Data collection/study/interpretation
• ‘Emic’ (insider) verus ‘etic’ (outsider) approach
• Attempt to grasp the making of meaningful social behavior
• Encourage reflexivity on part of the researcher

These research questions are not too different from the questions I seek to answer in the field of contextual concept workflow management (answering the four canonical questions of who, what, when, why), and the need to explicitize the context-tie-in.

Ms Sullivan also suggested that there is a progressive change in the sensitivity with which India has projected its image abroad and in the international arena. She discussed what makes the study of historical and current ethnographies challenging and how academic research could manage ‘in-the-field’ analysis of individuals who seek to inform public policy in international relations.

Finally, there was some time spent in general discussion and questions on issues affecting studies in International Relations. Points raised recognized the need to resolve cultural forces, challenges in marrying inconsistencies between theoretical and practical approaches and the academic material in the context of this research.

This blog entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Seminar: Seeing the World through Indian Foreign Service Eyes – A Blueprint for ‘Diplomatic’ Fieldwork

Speaker: Kate Sullivan, International Relations, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies

Date: Wednesday, 25 June 2009

Time: 3:30PM – 5:00 PM

Venue: Seminar Room A, Coombs Building, ANU (campus map)

Website: South Asia Seminar Series

Kate Sullivan is a PhD candidate and India specialist in the Department of International Relations at the Australian National University. She lectures  Hindi-Urdu Filmi Hindi (a course on Bollywood film studies) at the Faculty’s South Asia Center.

Original Seminar Notice at: South Asia Seminar Series

Seminar: Programming the iPhone

Speaker: Hugh Fisher, School of Computer Science, ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science

Date: Thursday, 25 June 2009

Time: 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM

Venue: CSIT Seminar Room, N101, CSIT Building (Bldg 108), North Road, ANU (campus map)

Website: Seminars @ CECS

Enquiries: Hugh Fisher

This seminar will give an introduction to the Apple iPhone (and iPod Touch) as a programming platform. Topics covered will include the hardware and OS capabilities, programming environment, the new styles of user interaction, and the restrictions on development and distribution. Don’t expect any impressive demos or in-depth benchmarking: the target audience is people who’ve never programmed an iPhone but are curious about what is involved.

This seminar is part of the CECS Seminar Series.

Hugh Fisher is a long time owner and programmer of Apple computers, and also interested in human-computer interaction. He is also a long time member of the School of Computer Science.

Original Seminar Notice at: Programming the iPhone, CECS Seminar List, The Australian National University, 2009

Comic-book Quicktake: End War Pt 2 of 3

American comic-book publisher Moonstone’s “reboot” of their flagship title The Phantom continues in this tale of sea-pirates and modern-day terrorist violence.

Illustration from "End War: Pt 2 of 3"

Mike Bullock’s penmanship is accompanied by rather striking artwork from Silvestre Szilagyi and ably colored by Bob Pedroza.

Illustration from "End War: Pt 2 of 3"

The “A” version cover by Joe Corroney is simply eye-catching and captivates you with its effectiveness in simplicity.

The Phantom (c) King  Features Syndicate Inc. The Phantom: Ghost Who Walks #2, published by Moonstone, 582 Torrence Avenue, Calumet City, IL 60409.

The artwork featured in this post  is merely presented for informational and review purposes.

This blog entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Blogpost: US Manned Space Program under review

Zoe Brain pens her thoughts about the current state of the US Manned Space Program.

Either way, the funding, and therefore the very existence of the US manned space program, won’t depend on the technical issues: it will depend on the US deficit, and the hard decisions Obama’s successor will have to make to remedy the catastrophically growing deficit that is planned to occur after he leaves office. That’s if nothing untoward happens that makes it even worse.

Full post at: http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2009/05/us-manned-space-program-under-review.html

Blogpost: Who ate that byte of apple?

Ganesh Venkateshwara writes about his experiences with Apple hardware and software on the iBook G4 and his eventual migration to Ubuntu Linux.

Out of enthusiasm and out of sheer curiosity, I wanted to own an Mac. So I got one, not a shiny new one, an old, but an equally shiny white, iBook G4. After about 5 months of continuous usage of the default OS that came with it (OSX 10.3 aka Panther), I bid it a farewell.

Full post at: http://tovganesh.blogspot.com/2009/05/who-ate-that-byte-of-apple.html

CECS Tutoring Quality Program 2/2009

The second discussion forum for the Tutoring Quality Program (TQP) of the College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS) at the Australian National University will be organized on Thursday, 14 May 2009.

Paul Preston from the ANU Academic Skills and Learning Centre will facilitate the discussion on marking and providing effective feedback to students and dealing with student expectations of outcomes.

The first session for Semester 1/2009 was organized on 19 March 2009.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Star Trek on Botox: 1/2: Messianic Rebirth

Gene Roddenberry’s space opera Star Trek is arguably amongst one of the most influential creative commentaries of modern times. Few, if most, television franchises demonstrate the awe-inspiring power to create morbid rifts between groups of people, highly polarized and opinionated — in this case: ardent fans or Trekkies and non-Trekkies.

Web 2.0 is abuzz with this new phenomenon termed Star Trek XI seemingly heralding a much awaited rebirth of the dawdling franchise which appeared doomed to a cabalistic following of Direct-to-DVD B-budget offerings.  For some, this J.J.Abrams-helmed sci-fi drama is a travesty that is cheekily irreverent of all the mythology and lore that they hold dear, while others herald this as the second coming of the Enterprise.

In a nutshell, this is Star Trek on Botox, young, pretty and wrinkle-free. But, is it just as numbing and bereft of the ethos that characterized the voyages of the Enterprise where no man (or more PC, one) has gone before? Is the new motion picture bravely traversing uncharted territories, or is it but a stricken reimagining of legends better left untouched?

The original televised franchise is considered seditiously engaging for dealing with complex social and political issues of the period in a covert fashion. Pointy-ears and green-skin were all that stood between the broadcasting authorities allowing or disallowing a given episode. And Star Trek managed to achieve this without coming across as too preachy or condescending.

But the series ended and was not picked up by networks for a fourth season. Star Trek, for all its intelligent and clever commentary, seemed relegated to graveyard shift reruns. Many considered its approach too cerebral and less punchy when Star Wars blasted onto the scene with reckless chutzpah.

And suddenly, space-drama became a lucrative franchise again.

Paramount struck back with Star Trek: The Motion Picture, a cerebral hotchpotch which could not be salvaged in spite of Robert Wise’s marathon efforts. Though the movie was a commercial success (if not losing money is a success), it did not augur well for the franchise — seemingly rejected by an audience now weaned on the widescreen pyrotechnics heralded by Star Wars.

However, director Nicholas Meyer struck gold with the second installment Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, a movie that went on to defy all expectations and become a darling at the box-office.

And so the story goes on for ten installments and the franchise comes to a cold-stop.

After Star Trek: Nemesis, the franchise appeared dated and seemed to be in need of a serious face-lift.

Next: Star Trek on Botox: 2/2: We Have Incoming

The next installment in this series discusses whether the new movie is accessible for viewers as a general cinematic experience.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Article: Changing the parameters of the asylum seekers debate

Author: Danielle Chubb, Phd Candidate,  Department of International Relations, The Australian National University

Published: Monday, 27 April 2009

Full story at: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8834

People smuggling, is not a security dilemma. It is a humanitarian challenge, writes Danielle Chubb

Changing the parameters of the asylum seekers debate

Danielle Chubb is a PhD candidate  in the Department of International Relations at the Australian National University specializing in ethics, discourse and human rights. She is currently completing her doctoral thesis on the transnational civil society response to the North Korean human rights issue.

Seminar: Generating Operational Guidelines from ATL Transformations

Speaker: Rainbow Cai, Lecturer, Department of Computer Science (DCS, ANU)

Date: Thursday, 30 April 2009

Time: 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Venue: CSIT Seminar Room, N101, CSIT Building, Building (108), North Road, ANU (campus map)

Website: Seminars @ CECS

Enquiries: Dr Shayne Flint

Model transformation, a core part of Model Driven Engineering, transforms models from one format to another. Model Transformation is normally done with transformation languages, such as ATL, XSLT, or programming language (e.g. java). Currently, transformation programs are written to achieve the basic transformation goal, i.e. transforming a model from one format to another.

As model transformation programs are well-structured information and implicitly contain the rationale, the conditions, and the results of an intended transformation, we argue that the potential of transformation programs needs to be explored to provide guidelines for currently isolated operational tasks such as detecting semantic inconsistencies, providing behaviour synchronisation information, and establishing traceability among models. In this paper, we introduce the CRelation model – a generic analysis and design model for model transformation, and use the CRelation model to assist the development of ATL transformation programs. From within the CRelation model, we then use the ATL programs to generate guidelines for the operational tasks related to model transformation. We demonstrate the feasibility of our approach with a case study and present the initial evaluation results.

This seminar is part of the DCS Seminar Series.

Rainbow Cai is a lecturer at the Computer Science Department, ANU. She did her PhD in Software Engineering at the Department of Computer Science, University of Auckland.

She holds undergraduate diploma, postgraduate diploma, and master of science degree (with honors), all in Computer Science, from University of Auckland. Rainbow has active research interests in the areas of software architecture modelling, software architecture performance evaluation, reverse engineering, domain-specific modelling language, automated software engineering, visual languages and environments, meta-tools for multi-view multi-notation design tools, and model transformation and integration. Her main areas of interest pertain to software architecture modelling, performance engineering, and model transformation and integration.

Original Seminar Notice at: Generating Operational Guidelines from ATL Transformations, CECS Seminar List, The Australian National University, 2009